Very short and simple chapter in the description of my hypothetical MMORPG which is perfect for me: My perfect MMORPG would not have any PvP at all.

That is not just personal dislike of PvP, but also the consequence of a deeply held belief that the same MMORPG can not have both perfect PvE and perfect PvP. Many of the features that I would like to have for PvE, e.g. levels and gear, conflict with my idea of perfect PvP, which would be based on skill, not differences in level or gear.

Furthermore I think that we have overwhelming evidence of how designing player abilities is made a lot more difficult when the game has both PvE and PvP. You end up with the same ability either doing very different things in the two different environments, or you have to compromise and create abilities that are perfect for neither environment. Simple example: A tank's taunt ability, which is basically defining who he is in PvE, but does strictly nothing in PvP. Not "very little", but "strictly nothing". Other examples would be crowd control, where transforming somebody into a sheep for 1 minute might be something you want to have in PvE, but certainly not in PvP.

Thus instead of having to compromise on my perfect PvE game, I'll just leave PvP totally out of my perfect MMORPG. Like Everquest did, with great success. Better to design a second, perfect PvP MMORPG, instead of failing to make one game which does everything perfectly. There is a decade of history and evidence on PvP in MMORPGs in the western market, and it turns out that in spite of all the hype, PvP only contributes marginally to the sucess of a MMORPG over here. The Asian MMORPG market is different in that respect.
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 8:15 AM Permanent Link
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That's probably the most boring blog post for a long time now, Tobold :)

That's probably the most boring blog post for a long time now, Tobold :)

Just another attempt to get you to start your own "perfect MMORPG" series on your blog, instead of hanging around here all day. :) I'm sure your perfect MMORPG would look very different than mine, but I have trouble believing that yours would work: You put too much emphasis on creating a realistic immersive world, and forget gameplay.

What would you say to, instead of having any PvP, having some intentional and designed competitive activity other than PvP?

What I mean is, take WoW for instance: the race for world firsts and server firsts is a form of competitive PvE activity that many raid guilds take very seriously indeed.

But there's only the smallest amount of support in the actual game for it - just some titles for server first kills. There's no official recognition of world firsts, no recognition or ranking for anyone other than the server first, etc.

Something like that could be implemented into the actual game. As could other competitive achievements, like speed runs.

You could even make them more head to head: like a race through a gauntlet (basically, a race to see who could clear a dungeon the fastest, between two or more players or teams starting at the same time).

So yeah, no PvP doesn't have to mean not supporting or encouraging any competitive spirit amongst the players.

Direct combat is not the only form of PvP. You can still kill the mobs he was intending to kill, harvest resources he was intending to harvest, train mobs to him and manipulate the market prices for the items he's interested in. Frankly, some of the more aggravating PvP situations I've been in were caused by a player in the same faction.

I agree.I find it annoying when PvE gameplay is affected by some sort of overpowering PvP element (usually becoming a vocal complaint from PVPers).That is one aspect in WoW that I find very irritating (I had a thought that Bliz could've created a different game on PvP servers, where it is constantly PvP and leveling wasn't required).I always laugh at the argument that a new MMO will fail if it does not have PvP (anyone remember the forums of LOTRO or STO during Beta?)Can anyone seriously say that LOTRO is a failed MMO for not having "proper" (whatever that is) PvP?

I still maintain that the mechanics of a "standard" fantasy MMO (a progression of tiered leveling and itemization increases) is inherently at its very core completely incompatible with what makes for interesting PVP (relatively equal opposition in fair matches.)

I think that it would still make sense to have some sort of PvP, but it should be a "game within the game".

The aproach of Lotro is a step in the right direction in my book.

An Arena with completely equal conditions.

An option for WoW would be an arena, where goblin and gnomish Mechs fight each other, which your character controls. You could have different Battlegrounds, whcih are fought over by those mechs. Makee them highly customizable and give the possibility for showing off with your cool colored Mech, or give them other graphical upgrades for winning.There could even be an incentive to gain "points" which you can use to buy better PvE Gear with.

The main problem of balancing PvE and PvP would be gone this way, which in my opinion is one of the biggest design flaws in WoW.

One niche use for Taunt in PvP: It works on most Guardian and Pet type player 'controlled' mobs.

Since there are situations in which you wish to either kill said pet/guardian, or wish said annoyance to not be hitting your teammate, that they may (for example) drink... Well, I found it worth keeping keybound.

And that's ignoring the various PvE-like elements in some of the battlegrounds.

Not that any of this detracts from your point. (Which appears to be 'a perfect game can be perfect for at most one player').

Personally, I don't mind if my perfect MMORPG has PvP element in it. However, it would have to be more of optional/side/bonus part of the game rather than the core of the game itself.

I dislike PvP in general like Tobold. I dislike the drama that PvP tend to bring forth to the community. I dislike the too competitive aspect of PvP. But I don't mind a little bit of friendly competition that is done with sportsmanship in mind.

Maybe some sort of party tournament would be great for my perfect MMORPG PvP where the main prize is something that adds convenience to the winners but by no means breaking the game for the non-winners and non-participants. Maybe a suitable prize would be free teleport for a week, or additional EXP gain for 24 hours, or less penalty from death for a week, etc instead of permanent super sword, magical pants, or diamond underwear that give mega stats.

A question for Tobold though.You don't like PvP (don't want direct confrontation between players). You don't like forced grouping in FFXI either. Does this mean that you prefer solo action in your perfect MMORPG?

You don't like forced grouping in FFXI either. Does this mean that you prefer solo action in your perfect MMORPG?

Actually I prefer grouping over solo action. I just don't think that "you can't kill anything solo" is the right approach. In my perfect MMORPG there would simply be a *substantial* xp bonus for playing in a group. Atlantica Online does that right, for example.

What WoW does wrong there is that if you group for example with 4 other players, it FIRST divides the xp by 5, and then adds a minor percentage xp bonus to that. If you were in a hyper-efficient group against an unlimited supply of mob spawns, you could theoretically get more xp per hour in a group in WoW than solo. But in reality a 5-man group does *not* do a typical quest 5 times faster than a solo player, and thus questing in a group has a significant xp per hour penalty in WoW.

Funnily enough I do think that most people are wrong to assume that "everybody prefers to solo". I think that most players are open to either soloing and grouping, depending on the amount of time they have on hand, and that if the incentives were right, they would group a lot more. Just look how the endgame of WotLK for the average player is different from the endgame of TBC: Back then we did a lot of solo daily quests, today we PUG heroics.

"Actually I prefer grouping over solo action. I just don't think that "you can't kill anything solo" is the right approach. In my perfect MMORPG there would simply be a *substantial* xp bonus for playing in a group. Atlantica Online does that right, for example."

I think that PvE and PvP can definitely coexist, but (like you mentioned) not very well in a class/level/gear based game like WoW. If they can relate to each other in ways that leave them exclusive but within the same world then they can both succeed.

PvE is pretty much just questing, raiding, gathering, and grinding. PvP currently affects PvE only by having other players occasionally clash while doing these activities and by attempts to balance one aspect that influences the other. Whenever I make a character in WoW, I design their talent build around PvP because the PvE is simple, predictable, and manageable with any spec. I think in a game with more of a wide skill selection instead of classes/levels/gear, if the PvP is designed first and the PvE designed with knowledge of how the PvP operates, it’d be simple enough to create PvE content that fit the scheme. And to me, Taunt having no affect in PvP is no big deal, I could just ignore that hotkey (although I always figured Taunt should make the target player automatically target you).

They’re both combat, and the biggest thing that imbalances them on the side of PvE is the lack of AI for trash mobs, and the length of boss fights. The AI is due for an upgrade by now, and while I can’t give specifics atm, I do think a boss designed around the skills that players already use for PvP can be just as affective. The holy trinity of tank/healer/dps is probably the biggest problem with balance and I personally think it should be either redesigned or done away with, but that’s another issue.

I guess I don’t see it as a compromise because a developer has complete control over their PvE content. There isn’t much the PvP could do that the developer couldn’t work into the PvE unless you start with PvE as a basis and incorporate PvP as an afterthought.

I vaguely remember a game coming up with a cool use for Tank taunts where it reduces the character you taunt damage for x amount of seconds unless they land two attacks on the Tank doing the taunting.

I'd imagine it could get quite hectic to figure out which tank taunted you or when multiple tanks taunt you in the middle of a mass battle.

I personally disagree that you can't have a good PvP and PvE coexisting in the same game. It just hasn't quite happened yet.

WoW started off as a PvE game and then had PvP tagged on as it became popular. But as some of the other posters have mentioned. You can't balance abilities when on one hand they are used against a boss with millions of HP who one shots everyone except tanks versus players with thousands of HP who take a number of attacks to kill anyone.

I'll agree with you, PvP is not needed for mmorpgs. I'd be perfectly happy if WoW didn't contain PvP. In fact, all those times our classes were nerfed because they were too strong in PvP would be a thing of the past.

If the game does contain PvP I'd like to see it different than in WoW. Having five battlegrounds and needing to do the same old battleground for five years isn't my idea of fun. In the time that Blizzard creates a battleground they've created a dozen instances. As for arena's, haven't really tried it enough to comment on it.

Coming from a PvP background (UO, MUD, M59) I've certainly dabbled in alot of WoW PVP throughout the years.

I think you'll find this interesting: I did a great deal of World PvP with friends in vanilla WoW, drawn into the whole horde vs. alliance, defending our outposts from horde raids, etc. This came to a peak when the honor system was introduced and I became a Knight of the alliance through my efforts in world pvp! (!) The battleground grind was a huge disappointment and I stopped PvPing when grinding all day was encouraged and world pvp was dead.

In burning crusade I was a top tier warrior in 2v2 and 3v3 for the first several seasons, but again it became extremely repetitive, as you mentioned Tobold people's PvE abilities were nerfed due to PvP balance...

And in Lich King I only PvPed basically in Wintergrasp and occasionally arenas. I've always raided but now 100% of my interest is to seeing PvE content and getting achievments, socializing, etc.

I'd rather play a dedicated PvP game whether it be a FPS game or something like League of Legends.

Although I do enjoy PvP, I think I'd also very much enjoy your perfect MMO as you describe it.

You don't need combat between players to have conflict between players, though. Many "competitive sports", for example, are really "PvE" tasks with "PvP" rankings, like Golf, Bowling, Track and Field, Swimming, etc.

As a big "PvP" player I have to agree. Quite frankly, if you are going to make a primarily PvE game, I say just do it. Don't try to court the PvP crowd with some sort of shoddy PvP mini game that simultaneously sucks in itself AND ruins PvE balance because you have to worry about how spell X works in PvP.

Frankly, the best PvP I've seen comes in things like shooters, or RTS games, and RPGs just don't do it very well from my experience. There might be other features in that MMORPG that make the PvP "worth it" or "interesting" or "meaningful" but the actually PvP in itself I could do without most of the time.

"To make a AAA MMO attract as many players as possible, you need explicit PvP in my opinion. In the end, that is why blizzard has it."

It completely depends on the greediness of the developers and the company as to whether they are content with leaving out PvP (or PvE) if it means a better game overall or if they only want to make the game in order to generate as much revenue as possible, even if it means raping the franchise.

I have not much respect for companies like these. It is a growing trend though, with Activision and EA being the flagships.

I just don't think that "you can't kill anything solo" is the right approach.

In FFXI, I think you can kill something solo. You just have to know the right target to kill, and because there is no obvious "quest 1 to quest 2 to quest 3" hints, it's less obvious on which monsters you can kill solo.

Personally, in FFXI, soloing from 1 to 20 is quicker than grouping. After 20, it's more beneficial to party.

In my perfect MMORPG there would simply be a *substantial* xp bonus for playing in a group. Atlantica Online does that right, for example.

I'm not sure I can agree with the example. Atlantica Online bonus EXP for partying is pretty much non-existant, let alone "substantial". It helps when you're super low level (pre-50) because of low exp require to level up, but it does almost nothing at all after that because of crazy EXP required jump.

LV1 to LV50: 2 million EXPLV1 to LV97: 98 million EXP LV1 to LV100: 200 million EXPLV1 to LV110: 800 million EXPLV1 to LV120: 2 billion EXPLV1 to LV130: 8,766,404,662 EXP

Using long-distance party EXP bonus, you gain probably around 1-10k/kill depending on the level. It's nowhere near substantial.

I think that most players are open to either soloing and grouping, depending on the amount of time they have on hand, and that if the incentives were right, they would group a lot more.

I 100% agree with this because I'm also one of those players. This is why I also think that FFXI got it right now.

It is feasible to solo if you want right now in FFXI. You can easily solo 1-20 just pure soloing killing monsters. 20-50 is doable by using Field of Valor (basically kill X monster Y number of times quest). 50+, you can do Campaign battles and FoV.

Soloing 1 to 20 is IMO quicker than grouping because you can keep on killing monsters with almost no downtime. No time needed to spend time finding people, no time needed to stop while some people AFK, etc. Soloing 1 to 20 is the way to go.

Post-20, grouping really starts to be more beneficial than soloing. While you can safely solo doing FoV and Campaign to 75 if you want, grouping to form EXP parties will net you MUCH more substantial EXP. At 75, if you campaign, you probably get 5k EXP/hr. If you party in a decent PuG, you get 8-10k/hr. If your group is great, it goes up to 20-25k/hr. Much more substantial than soloing.

I'm not here to tell you that FFXI is better than WoW because I believe people can just play whichever game they want. But I would like to let you know that FFXI might have improved a lot since the last time you tried it out at launch (or however many years ago). If you have spare time, you might want to give the free-trial a shot and see if it's still as unplayable as before. If still does, then at least you don't have to pay. If not, then maybe it's something you can enjoy.

Tobold, why are you so actively and extremely anti-PvP? Are you such a socialist carebear that all you can think of are welfare epics from faceroll bosses? Are you afraid of the challenge of someone who can fight back?

Today's troll brought to you by Roasted Boar Liver Stew: Just like Mom used to make.

As somebody with only moderate interest in PvP, I think every MMO should have PvP to some degree. However, I think that some games have tried to balance the two elements to the overall detriment of the game, so in that sense, I agree with the post. But I think there is middle ground to be had, as, I think, WoW demonstrates. There are many legitimate complaints to be made about WoW's handling of PvP, but there's no arguments with sccess.

I also note that the number of PvEers who dislike PvP and won't participate in it is likely much higher than the number of PvPers who don't do any PvE.

There are balancing acts within the two elements as well; Warhammer, for example, has a focus on PvP and only token PvE, and it still managed, incredibly, to screw the PvP up, despite the fact that all of the individual PvP gameplay elements work well on paper - and indeed, they worked well in the Beta. In the live environment, the whole thing collapsed with a resounding thunk.

There are many legitimate complaints to be made about WoW's handling of PvP, but there's no arguments with sccess.

If your measure of success is participation alone, perhaps.

But there is an inherent and fudnamental flaw in attempting to create balanced and fair combat in a game designed with tiered character progression and multiple classes filling the same roles in very different ways.

Tobold dislikes PvP for the same reasons he dislikes today's raiding system: it's too fast and too furious. Before Tobold has any idea of what has just happened he has already been raped by a 14 year old with better reaction time and a lot less maturity.

I think you just scared to think about how to design good pvp system and fit it into MMO.- It is understandable -as you are not a pvp'er you do not know the dynamics of it , its problem, heck even basic pvp gameplay is probably a hostile mystery to you.

Though that is a typical carebear attitude of hiding your head in the sand instead of addressing the problem I for one believe that MMO of my dreams would have both gameplay styles integrated - rich PvE and PVP. I know the pitfalls of current gear based treadmills hence I would have design aimed to avoid those issues.

I believe PvE experience could be vastly enhanced over current meaningless instance grind. I for one thing LotRo monster play is great idea which should be enhanced and integrated into pve side (and not be a BG like gimmick). GM dungeons would also be great addition. A lot of things could be done to make pve more interesting and neatly integrated with pvp.

Pure pve game? -there are only so many ways to kill a foozle , and I believe I seen them all many times over.In fact I seen them all even before MMOs came to exist ( in single player RPGs)

Actually I would claim that PvE has a higher chance of players actively selecting an opponent which can fight back. In PvP 99% of the game is to set up a situation in which your opponent CAN'T fight back, because you outlevel, outgear, or outnumber him.

In a sense, aren't we outgearing bosses when we force them to attack only the person who is unusually capable of surviving attacks? If they attacked a more moderately 'geared' person, that would mean a raid boss beating up a shaman or hunter, something in the middle of the armor/health range.

I think 1x1 PVP is a fail on MMORPGs because both players are playing in different conditions: sets, level, cash items etc. It works like Formula 1 competition, the best car will win and not the best driver.

But a PVP group-based event is fair in some cases...Imagine a battle between 2 guilds:both guilds with the same number of fighters, with high and low levels, strongs and weaks, cashers and non cashers...This battle can happen in the same condition for both sides.

I play a game that has such event and it's fair since every week we don't know who is gonna win the battle. A guild can still use strategies to beat the other guild.We could compare this case with a soccer game, where all players are playing on the same conditions and we never know who is gonna win the match.

To some extent, successful games with a large following like WoW become an entity independent of the creator. Much of the MMO experience for me occurs here in the blogosphere, in my own imagination, and through interactions with other players. All largely independent of gameplay mechanics.

What I'm getting at is that the original design/development of an MMO is only a part of the player experience. You can't create "perfect" from the start. "Perfect" must evolve.

Agreeing with Hirvox that a proper discussion of PvP should include non-direct PvP. PvP can be as indirect as the rankings on World of Logs to something where two teams are engaged in PvE fights that are influenced by the actions on the other side.

In a sense, aren't we outgearing bosses when we force them to attack only the person who is unusually capable of surviving attacks?

I disagree. Forcing them to attack the tank is one part of the whole strategy to bring down the enemy. Tanking the boss is only increasing your survivability. Whether you can win or not, it depends on the rest of the party members pulling their share (e.g.: avoiding AoE, knowing which positive/negative status to remove, healing accordingly, efficient usage of MP, etc etc).

On the other hand, outgearing your opponent in PvP is already increasing your chance of victory by a lot because:1. You increase your survivability (better defense from armor meaning you take less damage than your opponent)2. You decrease your opponent's survivability (better offense from weapon meaning you deal more damage than your opponent)

On the other hand, outgearing your opponent in PvP is already increasing your chance of victory by a lot because:1. You increase your survivability (better defense from armor meaning you take less damage than your opponent)2. You decrease your opponent's survivability (better offense from weapon meaning you deal more damage than your opponent)

Do you think you could elaborate on this a bit? I don't really get it because if you changed "PvP" to "PvE" it would be just as true.

Do you think you could elaborate on this a bit? I don't really get it because if you changed "PvP" to "PvE" it would be just as true.

What I disagreed with was Klep's comparison between outgearing and tanking as if they function the same way. Outgearing and tanking clearly function differently.

Also, in PvE, outgearing the enemy that is not soloed functions differently. The tank's role is to survive. Thus, increasing tank's offense is not as crucial as in 1v1 PvP because the source of damage is from the DPS. Likewise with increasing defense for the DPS, it's nowhere near as important because the damage should mostly be taken by the tank.

In 1v1 PvP, the player is the tank, the DPS, and the healer all in one. Thus, gear becomes much more valuable than compared to Party vs Monster in PvE where each player functions as a specific role and able to focus on stats that they need.

I'm not fond of PvP either, and for a game designed to be fun for ME there would be no PvP. However if the game was strictly designed to be fun for ME it probably wouldn't attract enough folks to keep it funded.

Likewise while ditching PvP should be able to make the PvE part of the game better it may actually make the game "less populated", as in some percentage of folks who are "mostly PvE" currently do "a little PvP" because changing stuff up from time to time is fun.

If that percentage is too high, you lose too many people. Specifically if "better PvE" makes 10% more people want to play, losing more then 10% of the "mostly PvE, some PvP" folks makes the number of PvE folks drop. This may or may not matter depending on how much grouping your game needs...

(also from an investor viewpoint, losing more "pure PvP"+"mostly PvE, some PvP" players then you pick up because of the better PvE is also a big fat loose)

From a "I play game X to chat with my guild friends" point of view, it doesn't matter if you never grouped with "cool guy X" because he does 100% PvP and you do 100% PvE. It just matters that you won't get to seem him in guild chat because he won't do a 100% PvE game. So you lose some more folks there (which is the same reason I think MMOs that fail to support Macs leave a lot more players for WoW to pick up then they think they do...).

So maybe the best thing to do is to design two related games, give them the same name, and switch between them for PvP and PvE (as in one guild chat, one inventory list, but different rules for what the abilities do depending on whether the target is a mob/NPC or a player). It would be klunky for folks that do both, and it won't handle "world PvP" well, but it would work.

Tobold, I think all PvE'ers are bullies that beat up innocent pixels until they cough up their hard earned loot.

You call fair 10 or 25 players ganging up on one or some inferior monsters who are so stupid that they only try to beat up the most armored guy in the group?

Jokes aside, I can't understand why is fine to explore every advantage in PvE but not in PvP.

The thing is, in games like Darkfall or Eve, PvP starts long before you face an enemy or in WoW's case long before you enter a contested or enemy area.

People don't like PvP not because of some sense of fairness or what have you. They just don't like to be beaten (and this is a huge understatement: i bet Tobold felt physical pain each and every time he was killed, let me caps this, IN A GAME :) ) and/or they can't be bothered to prepare for PvP.

In a PvP game like Darkfall even a small trip to a nearby mob lair takes time and it's risky and most players no longer have the time or willingness to engage in that kind of gameplay.

Fair enough.

In any case there are very different kinds of PvP. In Darkfall/EVE you have Strategy PvP and in WoW you have Tactical PvP (of course each as a some of the other as well) in a sense that in the former the world is your battleground and you have to take into account factors like terrain, set your own objectives and, as a freaking real life fighter would do, fight only when you are certain of victory. There is a manual quite good to excel at Strategy PvP written by one of the biggest fraggers of all time: Sun Tzu.

In Tactical PvP only execution counts because the terrain, objectives and terms of engagement are already defined. That's what you have in WoW in arenas and BG's. That is fun as well, but more often than not, the 10000th WSG you play will be more or less like the 1st...

I think that what you mean is that you don't want any Strategy PvP in your game.

As for class balance the only reason I can imagine Blizzard doing the hops around the classes is just them trying to promote Arenas as an E-Sport. In that regard no class can be the Akuma of the game. If they give up the sports thingie than who cares about class balance in PvP (unless they tie some achievments to PvP performance).

They just don't like to be beaten (and this is a huge understatement: i bet Tobold felt physical pain each and every time he was killed, let me caps this, IN A GAME :) ) and/or they can't be bothered to prepare for PvP.

That is typical of your elitist attitude that you misrepresent valid criticism like that. It isn't pain I'm feeling when I get ganked, it is BOREDOM. And I feel exactly the same boredom when I storm a keep with 50 friends and there are only 3 defenders, because me and my 50 friends did the "strategically brilliant" maneuver of attacking when the defenders were logged off.

What you don't understand is that unlike what Sun Tzu describes, we are talking about a GAME here, not real war. How much fun would a soccer match be if Manchester United managed to beat Liverpool because MU turned up when nobody but the Liverpool goalie was on the soccer field?

Your strategy of "preparing for PvP" consists of spending hours to make sure that the actual battle is as boring as possible. Why would I want to spend money and time on making my game more boring?

"Your strategy of "preparing for PvP" consists of spending hours to make sure that the actual battle is as boring as possible. Why would I want to spend money and time on making my game more boring?"

That is why you don't play such games. And that is why you don't want Strategical PvP in your game.

Tactical PvP however can and will be included in every game.

And it will work fine if they don't try to balance it at the expense of PvE like they try to do in WoW.

"What you don't understand is that unlike what Sun Tzu describes, we are talking about a GAME here"

Yes we are. And that is why I'm not as bothered with being ganked and looted. Because it's a game. Nevertheless, the Art of War has a lot of knowledge that can be applied in any competitive activity. Even in WoW BG's...

L2 Olimpyads where there where limitations, no buffs, etc for the battle and for what i remember it doesnt count your enchantment lvl after +3 That's almost equal conditions pvp, with the only problem that some classes are good at ganking, not dueling so it was harder for them.